This was the first party, well actually the only party, that we went to. I was trying to capture just how many people were there. It was very warm from all the body heat and pent up emotion. Also, the party actually managed to exceed the capacity of the pub/restaurant. CRAZY!
Maggie and her patriotic hair. I used my former cheerleader skills to tie those stellar bows.
Stacey and the miracle laptop that kept us posted on election results while we were queuing/in line.This past weekend we went to York, England and it was pretty great. It was sponsored by Butler but we didn't have a set agenda or anything set in stone (except for the free dinners they provided at some really nice restaurants). On Friday Stacey, Kara and I caught the train to York at about 10 am. We got into York around 12:30 pm and soon realized that we had no idea what we were supposed to do because none of us had checked our email for instructions. So we called some other people to: a) find out where our hotel was b) what the name of the hotel was and c) find out where our free dinners were. Once we gathered all the information we decided it was time for a nice lunch. We ate at this little pub called Lendal Cellars. Apparently the cellar is/was on the land of a friary/monastery during the 13th century. I don't know if it was a cellar during that time but it was, at some point, owned by the Lord Mayor and he kept all his booze there. I think it was converted into a bar sometime in the 18th century. We then made our way to the hotel and, of course, we got lost along the way. Once we got there, we settled in and I discovered, to my great delight, that my roommate was not on the trip. After Maggie arrived (she booked her ticket well before us and, therefore, had a totally different travel schedule) we made our way into the city center where we window shopped and then slipped into a pub for some hot cocoa and tourist planning before going to dinner. Dinner was delicious and we thought we might go to the movies afterward (because no one really felt like partying it up). Unfortunately the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, was all sold out and we just went back to the hotel and watched a movie on TV. I never realized how truly cheesy Armageddon is.
Saturday we decided to do a whirlwind of touristy stuff. First we went on a boat ride down the Ouse River (pronounced like "ooze") which runs through York. We learned that York often floods meaning that river rises several feet. Did you know it is still legal to shoot a Scotsman with bow and arrow in York if he's within the city walls after dark? Guy Fawkes, the infamous man who plotted to blow up Parliament on November 5, 1604, was from York. After the boat tour (which was grand but quite chilly) we made our way to the Castle Museum which stands in the place where York Castle used to be and has a huge amount of information about the history of York. They even have a life-size replica a main road in York from the mid-19th century! It was fabulous. We ended up spending a lot of time in the Castle Museum even though I don't remember much about it besides the York replica. We decided lunch was necessary and settled on a place we dubbed "The Leaky Cauldron" even though its real names was Gert & Henry's. This house turned restaurant is extremely old. The floor slanted significantly and everything was creaky and magnificent. I loved it. Next we went to an area called The Shambles. It is a very old, narrow street with very old buildings (some dating back from the 1300s!). The bottom floors were/are where the shops were/are and the upper stories as the place where the shop owners lived (I'm not sure if that's the case today). The best thing about York, in my opinion, is that the whole city has an aura of either Harry Potter or Shakespeare - and I LOVE both. Some of the upper stories of the building are so old that the lean in towards the street! No wonder The Shambles is the place where they shot Diagon Alley for the Harry Potter films!!! It practically screams MAGIC!
Next stop was York Minster, though I kept calling it Westminster, which boasts that it is the second largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe (apparently the Germans out did the Brits with their cathedral at Cologne). We climbed up the tower, an extremely tiring 300 steps, and got a gorgeous view of York. I walked around the church itself while the other girls went to underneath to the crypt part or something. While I wandered and took an obnoxious amount of photos, a choir began to sing. I saw a lot of people crowding around looking in on the choir. They were even taking pictures. So I decided to go over and see what all the fuss was about. Lo and behold there was a BOYS CHOIR practicing for mass later that night! I got extremely excited and snapped about 10 pictures before settling myself down to listen to their ethereal little voices reverberate off the walls of the cathedral. It was truly amazing and moving. We finally departed and made our way to dinner at this place called ASK. This restaurant used to be assembly rooms for York where big meetings, socials and balls were held! The link gives you a good view of the restaurant - it was great! After a delightful dinner we went on a ghost tour because York is supposedly haunted with hoards of ghosts. Not all of the stories were very scary but they were all allegedly true and it was dark, cold and rainy outside so it really helped set a creepy atmosphere. After our haunting tour we went to the movies and actually got in to see Quantum of Solace. It was good but not as good as Casino Royale. But I'm not complaining. Who doesn't love watching two hours of Daniel Craig?
Sunday was pretty uneventful. We basically just went shopping. Maggie left us pretty early on because her train left at a decent hour (ours didn't leave until 8:30 that night!). So we had a lot of time to kill. We booked our hostels for our trip to Amsterdam and Brussels (we opted not to go to Germany because we thought we might be stretching ourselves too thin) and saw another movie. This time we saw Easy Virtue. Clearly it was a play that had been made into a film because everything was very dramatic and over exaggerated. Also, Jessica Biel was in it and she was not exactly my idea of a forward-thinking 1920s race car driver. We did some homework and then we got on our train back to Edinburgh. It was good to be back. Here are some pictures from York!
The Shambles aka DIAGON ALLEY!!! York is very busy and touristy... in case you couldn't tell from the picture.
Inside Gert & Henry's or The Leaky Cauldron as we kept calling it. The room is actually slanted that's not my shabby photography skills.
Front of York Minster.
View of York Minster from halfway up our tremendously difficult climb up the tower.
Inside York Minster.
Gorgeous stained glass windows of York Minster.
BOYS CHOIR!!! This basically made the entire day worthwhile!
Yay! More boys choir! Their voices were so angelic. I could have listened for hours.
More York Minster.This week has been pretty uneventful because weeks 7 and 8 in the school year are the when the most essays and assignments are due. Basically its crunch time for a lot of people. I don't have a ton of stuff due but I definitely have some work that needs to be completed. Saturday is our lone night out. We're going to The Tron to see our favorite band in Edinburgh. It will be fabulous. Next week we leave for Amsterdam on Wednesday. I'm so excited! We're going to see Anne Frank's house and we're going to the Red Light District (just to look - no worries) and then Brussels is going to be great. We're banking on our first excursion to mainland Europe as a group being an extremely memorable one... I'm sure it will be.
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